12% of Employees Knowingly Violate Company IT Policies

Not allowed to use Firefox at work? Must change your password every 60 days? Can only copy stuff using authorized thumbdrives? These are but some examples of rules that IT departments have in place to prevent loss of sensitive data and attacks from outsiders. Such things are very important, but a recent survey showed that as much as 12% of employees knowingly breach company IT policies in order to get work done.

Ars Technica - By now, it's practically a mantra that the biggest problem with corporate IT security is the employees themselves. However, we usually assume that's due to ignorant users or poorly enforced policies. Not so for a chunk of the US working population—according to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive, 12 percent admitted to knowingly violating IT policy in order to get work done.

To be fair, the survey was conducted on behalf of Fiberlink, a company that offers IT security services, but seriously, have you yourself no breached certain rules to get work done faster?